I HAVE THE INFO

Some of you come to me since I compared Tom Boonen to Dr. Rockzo and have been all:

“Dude, harsh! TB just got dis invited from the Tour.”

I want to address that now. But first a long digression:

One of the great ideas my dad ever had was making my brothers and I work through our summer and winter breaks after high school and during college. We painted and did demolition at the University of Pennsylvania.

The crews were staffed with 2 kinds of folks: college kids and guys who were in recovery.

I have this clear memory of sitting out behind Hill house, the summer after graduating from high school. Maybe we were taking a break. Maybe we were folding drop cloths. Anyway, this guy I’m working with, not one of the college kids, and I are bullshitting about whatever, probably girls. He starts telling me about this girl he knew growing up. How fine she was…and how she got on the pipe and all that changed. And how her brother got on the pipe, and how his girlfriend got on the pipe, her friend, her cousin, her nephew…and so on and so forth.

In retrospect, he made it sound like if you were the one not smoking crack rocks in that kind of place, you’d be like the lone hold out in a zombie movie.

Ever since then, I’ve had what you might call a more then moderate disdain for rich white people who mix it up with the blow. Maybe because I have that picture in my head. Possibly also, because not only does the law punish them less when busted, but also because they are more likely to have better access to treatment.

Anyway, Tom Boonen is a public figure, doing something dumb. I think he’s earned a little bit of ridicule.

That said, I can’t help but think that maybe this is the best possible thing that could have happened to him. He’s a great bicycle racer; he’s fun to watch. Maybe he’ll get some treatment while everyone else is riding the tour this summer. It’d be a major bummer if he ended up like Pantani.